What Challenges Exist In Tackling The Problem Of Online Child Pornography?

Weight: 20% of your final grade: 15% for essay; 5% for comments
ASA FORMAT
When you have completed Unit 3, review the answers you provided for the four questions you selected. Write down the answers suggested by the textbook material, and think about the relation between those answers, grounded in social research, and the answers that you provided when you first approached the question. Analyse the differences and ask yourself the following questions.
• Were your answers close to or far from the answers presented in the textbook?
• Did the answers you provided prior to reading the textbook individualize the problem, or did they attempt to include social, political or economic causes?
• Where did your answers come from? They didn't just appear in your head so, where did they originate? Did they come from church, parents, the lodge, aliens in the atmosphere?
As you jot down notes in answer to the questions given above, watch your thinking process and ask yourself the following questions.
• Are you finding yourself resistant to textbook ideas?
• Do you laugh and guffaw, or squirm uncomfortably, as you gradually expose the common sense and ideology in your thinking?
• Do you attempt to preserve your thinking by privileging, for example, lodge wisdom over social research?
Analyse what is happening, and when you are finished, write down your analysis in an 800-1200 word essay on common sense. Submit your essay to your tutor for grading, using ths assignment link (see http://orientation(dot)lms(dot)athabascau(dot)ca/ if you need help using the link). Then, post it in the Unit 3 Forum for discussion and comment.
The goal here is to not only educate yourself on some key social problems (addictions, the sex trade, etc.), but also to make you more aware of your own thinking process and the nature and sources of some of the ideas you have in your head. Critically examining your thinking processes may be a new thing for you, but that's the nature of sociology. Sociologists deal with some incredibly complex empirical phenomena, and unless we develop our ability to think critically about complex social phenomena, we have no hope of coming up with reasonable explanations or useful solutions.
Celeste Olmedo
SOCI 290
Assignment 3
May 11, 2019
Chapter 7
Question #5: What challenges exist in tackling the problem of online child pornography?
There are probably many issues that exist to try and put an end to online pornography. There are so many online sources that even though one website may be discovered and shut down, another can pop up to replace it. Just like any crime, there are the brains of the operation - highly intelligent or tech savvy individuals that find ways to hide illegal material on what could appear to be harmless websites that go undetected. A significant problem is also the demand. The source only exists because there is a demand for it. It would be important to understand why and how individuals desire to seek this specific type of pornography. I would imagine that finding these individuals would be just as difficult a task as finding and shutting down child pornography online. Another issue is also that the internet is international. The victims of child pornography could be in any number of countries. Once again, even if a particular website is shut down, the victims may never be found and rescued. The abusers could always find new victims, unless caught and incarcerated. All countries should be responsible in tackling this issue, there would almost have to be an international collaboration on behalf of law enforcement to shut as much of it down as possible.
Chapter 8
Question #2: If stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and inhalants have such potential for hazardous side effects, why do so many people use these drugs? If drug enforcement policies were more stringently enforced, would there be less drug abuse in this country?
Sometimes people use drugs not understanding the consequences of taking them. They are uneducated about the negative, secondary, and long-term effects. More often however, people do understand the consequences – or know that drugs are “bad” in general. There are many reasons why individuals may decide to take drugs despite this knowledge and understanding. These reasons could be due to a vulnerable mental state. Those who suffer from this may be victims of peer pressure, those who understand the consequences yet do not care because of low self worth, and those who choose to disconnect and seek to escape reality.
Criminalizing and harsh drug laws are not the solution. Rehabilitation is the solution. Those who consume drugs are not criminals – usually not at first, although drugs may influence people to commit crime. Those who consume drugs, are victims of drugs. There would be more resources to focus on education and rehabilitation if the focus was not on criminalizing the consumption of drugs. However, the sale and distribution of drugs should be illegal, and there should be strict laws to criminalize it. Law and enforcement need to cut the issue at the source, at the make and distribution of these substances, to prevent and decrease drug availability to victims.
Chapter 9
Question #3: Does the functionalist, conflict, or interactionist perspective best explain why people commit corporate crimes? Organized crimes? Explain your answer.
The conflict perspective best explains why people commit corporate and organized crimes. This perspective is all about people that have power and that want to maintain or increase their power and resources. Corporate crime indicates that the criminals are educated or knowledgeable which means that they have a higher social status. The motive of committing these crimes would most likely be to maintain or improve their social status and financial resources. The same idea goes for organized crime. An individual who obtained a certain status within a criminal group, or a group of people that commit crime who have obtained a reputation or have created a lucrative business within a society or community, would also seek to increase in power and wealth.
The interactionist perspective, which is all based on interpersonal relations, could possibly better explain how individuals came to be part of the crime world in the first place. The person’s interactions such as how an individual was raised, who he or she associated with throughout their life, and their social status and power, can all explain how they may have associated themselves with these crimes.
Chapter 10
Question #1: Because Canadians take pride in their high level of life expectancy, they are usually surprised to learn that the infant mortality rate of Indigenous people is double the rate of Canadians generally. Why is this rate so high, and what do you think individuals can do at the community level to save those young lives?
The mortality rate is high most likely because of a lack of education, resources, and support. Many Indigenous people start having children before reaching adulthood. Which means that many of the parents of the deceased children do not have the understanding or sense of responsibility that are needed to care for a child’s well-being. Many Indigenous people in Canada have been commonly known to have drug and alcohol abuse problems, which can create a hazardous environment for infants, exposing them to dangerous substances and possibly violent situations. It is to my understanding that there is somewhat of a vicious circle in many Indigenous communities of drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and absentee parents. This could explain a lack of familial support and a low-quality educational environment in which the parents of the infants were raised themselves. All which in turn, often create similar environments for their own children.
At the community level, education can be made a priority. Programs to promote education and health such as pre-natal care and early childhood development should be made mandatory for everyone (including non-Indigenous parents), or at least highly recommended. Also, programs focussing on family relationships could help develop or establish a healthy support system to optimize the well-being of all, but most importantly of the children. Basic resources for all families should also be another community responsibility. Resources such as water, heat, electricity, food (baby formula), and clothing (diapers).
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